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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24336427">One Last Dream</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joanne_c/pseuds/Joanne_c'>Joanne_c</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Green Green Grass Of Home (song)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:53:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,242</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24336427</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joanne_c/pseuds/Joanne_c</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The narrator has one last dream that the sad old padre can help with, will it be possible?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Narrator &amp; Sad Old Padre, Narrator/Mary</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Jukebox 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>One Last Dream</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/gifts">elstaplador</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dear Padre Miles,</p><p>I didn’t think I would ever be writing this letter to you, as you know. I didn’t think I’d be doing anything. But thanks to you and Mary, I am able to do so much more than I ever thought I would.</p><p>First of all, I’m home. As I write this, I’m sitting on my front porch and looking at the beautiful green grass on my lawn, right down to the street. Not long ago, Mary and I took a walk and a picnic, sitting on a blanket on the grass and kissing between bites of food. There was a special reason for the picnic, Padre, I proposed marriage to my beautiful golden-haired Mary and she said yes.</p><p>I never thought I would have that moment. Not ever. I thought I would be buried beneath the tree in front of this house, that would be the closest I’d come to living here again.</p><p>I have been, to put it politely, foolish in my life. Most foolish was when I got in with the wrong crowd at college. You even tried to warn me, I remember that, that moment when you came up and tried to caution me. I heard you, even if you thought I didn’t, Padre. So that was why I called you later. In a way, that moment you talked to me was what saved my life in the end.</p><p>I was stupid enough to drive a car for them. I admit it, I liked being behind the wheel of a fast car. We all have our moments, though I’m sure yours were never as foolish as mine were. Or maybe they were, and you keep that in a vault in your memory. I don’t know. Maybe you’ll tell me one day.</p><p>I knew what they were doing, or some of it. I’m not naïve – or at least not that naïve. The money, the booze, the clothes, I knew they weren’t getting that in any way that would pass the tax office. I should have said something, I know that. I know so much more now than I knew then.<br/>
So the day someone died because of them, I never knew one of them planted the gun in my car’s trunk. I’ll never know if they had plans to turn me in, because the gun was found in a routine traffic stop. That led to me being put on trial, and sent to prison. Then I heard what happened to the man who was shot with the gun and a part of me felt responsible – I suppose a part of me was, I did drive the car. That’s why I didn’t try to defend myself and the lawyer could only do so much.</p><p>I think I got a judge that was tired of guns – at least that’s what the papers said when I was finally able to read them. I don’t know how much is speculation.</p><p>I was lucky in one thing and one thing only. You were the one who got my phone call, because I had to take a public defender as my lawyer. I knew I could trust you. I gave you Mary’s address and number.</p><p>Without you and Mary, I wouldn’t be able to write this. The two of you worked together so hard. I know we all came close to defeat at least once. Maybe more, that none of us admitted to the rest. You working within the church and Mary doing what she could on the street. I won’t tell you all the details of that – I don’t think you want to know. But she did some things I would only do for her. I think that is the definition of love, and thank God she didn’t run into the wrong person at the wrong time.</p><p>She was brave and confronted everyone until she found him. The leader of that group, and I’m sort of grateful he had a thing for blondes even if the very idea of him even looking at Mary makes my blood boil. But it’s worth it and she says so, too. She got him drunk – pretending to match him drink for drink but substituting water for vodka for herself. Then she asked him what he’d do to prove he loved her. Would he break into a clothes shop, and a dozen other things he said yes to. She said it was like he’d done them, and well… he had. I knew about most of them. She then asked him what else he’d done, recording him through it all. Until he admitted to what he had done to me.</p><p>I don’t even think he knew she left after that, and I know he woke up the next morning to a hammering on the door from the police. I hope he was hung over so bad that the pain from that was as bad as the pain from finding out he was going to prison – there was no need for the trial as he’d confessed it all, drunk or not.</p><p>I’m not sure what would have happened if Mary hadn’t got that confession on tape. We both know what was to happen the morning after the police picked him up. But instead of walking arm in arm with you to my death, at daybreak the next day you walked me out of the prison, into the sunlight.</p><p>Mary had gone home, which surprised me at first. But I only had to go home and pack, and she’d left me the train ticket for home, and a note to come home to her.</p><p>I called you to let you know I would be leaving and you were kind enough to take me to the station. I didn’t like saying goodbye to you, but I had to – I had to be with Mary after everything.</p><p>It was beautiful, Padre. I got off the train, it was a little early, and I saw my parents, then Mary with her beautiful hair of gold and cherry-red lips. I knew then that I’d propose to her.</p><p>Not yet. I had to recover and get my strength back, and find something to do with my life. I couldn’t ask her to marry the man I was then.</p><p>I started working with my dad in the family store, and studied at night, eventually getting my degree in teaching.</p><p>Then I interviewed at the school, knowing my own old English teacher was close to retirement. I’ve been working with him for the last year, so when he retires at the end of this year I’ll be ready to take over his position. Not that I’ll ever be the teacher he was, but he thinks I’ll do okay.</p><p>If not for you, and Mary, that would never have happened.</p><p>Now that I had a job and a future, I could propose to Mary.</p><p>There’s just one thing left, Padre.</p><p>Both Mary and I want this more than anything in the world. We checked, and it’s okay with our local priest too.</p><p>Would you come to our town and marry us? We are happy to make it a time that works for you, but it is our last dream.</p><p>As so many have come true for us both, it might be too much to ask, but please, will you? It would be the last piece in our puzzle to begin the life we want so much.</p><p>Yours,</p><p>Robert.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm not entirely sure the padre would be able to marry him and Mary, but I'm claiming it as dramatic license.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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